Tag Archives: twenty

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning

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Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning
Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning

Eroded Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. April 6, 2006. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Low angle morning light illuminates a tortured landscape of eroded gullies at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park.

I recently “rediscovered” this photograph while undertaking a major review of the past eight years of my raw files. (And, yes, that task is just about as much fun as you might imagine. It would actually be pretty unbearable except that every so often I find some photographs that I had perhaps forgotten or overlooked, and I also come across images that remind me of experiences that took place some time ago.)

This photograph was made, as virtually anyone who has visited the spot recognizes, by pointing my camera about 90 degrees to the left of the classic Zabriskie Point views. Timing was important, as the early light is just skimming across the tops of these tortuously eroded gullies, picking out the ridges between them but leaving the lower sections in shadow. But good fortune also played a role here. Death Valley is usually a clear blue sky kind of place, but on this morning I had clouds! At dawn, if I recall correctly, the clouds actually interfered with the light a bit. But as the sun rose the clouds provided a more dramatic background than plain blue sky and created some softer and diffused light that gave just the right sort of dynamic range for photographs.

On a technical note, if you are viewing this in the right web browser you can mouse over the image and see a summary of basic EXIF data. (Sorry, but this feature only works in web browsers – if you are viewing email, etc. you’ll need to visit the version at my blog to see the EXIF.) If you do check the EXIF you might notice that this photograph was made with a very humble example of photographic technology, the Canon Digital Rebel XT. This camera is a 8MP cropped sensor “consumer” camera that I acquired when I first tested the waters of DSLR photography. (I had actually used digital cameras back in the 1990s, but not for serious photographic work.) Those who wonder which of today’s current DSLRs might enable them to produce interesting and effective images might consider what could be done with such a humble camera. ;-)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Greenstone Lake, Morning

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Greenstone Lake, Morning
Greenstone Lake, Morning

Greenstone Lake, Morning. Sierra Nevada, California. August 11, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on Greenstone Lake and surrounding trees and rocky terrain.

Greenstone is a relatively small lake just beyond the upper end of Saddlebag Lake, which is itself located just east of the Sierra crest and Yosemite National Park in an area dominated by Mount Conness and the tall ridge on which it stands. I had arrived before dawn at the Saddlebag Lake parking lot so that I could be on the trail before sunrise. Rather than giving in to the temptation to pay for a “water taxi” ride to the other end of the lake, I took the trail along the left shore, and arrived at Greenstone Lake just about the time that the first direct light was making its way down to this lake and the surrounding rocky hillside.

In this wet year with its late arrival of summer conditions, everything was still very wet around the lake and the meadow plants were still green and growing. (In dry years they start to finish up their growth spurt and begin turning brown by this time.)

I think this lake is a bit tricky to photograph in morning light. The light could be lovely at sunrise, but it would still be well up on the high ridges above the lake. It takes a long time for the sun to get high enough to rise above the ridge leading to Tioga Peak, and by that time most of the early morning warm light quality has given way to more typical daytime light. There were a few challenges in this photograph. They included trying to figure out how to find a workable composition in such a complex scene that was made even more complex by the reflections in the water. I think the triangle of rocky terrain in the upper half of the frame may help with this. The light posed several problems, mainly related to the very large dynamic range between the bright rocks and the shaded areas of forest at upper right. The light color was also tricky – because the shadows tend to be much bluer in a photograph than your eyes register when you are there, I had to mute the very blue quality of the shadows. This was done partly with an overall adjustment to color, but some additional work had to be done directly on the shadows.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert

Sunrise Light, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

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Sunrise Light, Twenty Mule Team Canyon

Sunrise Light, Twenty Mule Team Canyon. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Detail of eroded formations at dawn in Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California.

This photograph is pretty much all about the light – though the interesting and varied patterns of the wildly eroded hills in Twenty Mule Team Canyon also help.

Twenty Mule Team Canyon is just a short distance up the road from the famous and iconic Zabriskie Point (a downright iconic photograph of which I recently posted here). But while the throngs gather at Zabriskie every morning before and at dawn – with good reason – almost no one is to be found here during this time of beautiful light, even though it is in some ways almost as amazing as Zabriskie. I made this photograph at that magic moment when the sun was just coming over a nearby ridge and we see full sun on the formations at the upper right but somewhat subdued light closer in the foreground.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: twenty, mule, team, canyon, death valley, national park, california, usa, sunrise, dawn, light, erosion, folds, gully, ridge, hill, geology, colors, rock, dirt, gravel, pattern, shadow, landscape, detail, scenic, travel, stock, abstract

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert

Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Morning

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Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Morning

Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Morning. Death Valley National Park, California. April 2, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Morning light on the round folds of earth in Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley National Park, California.

From my point of view, at least based on my one visit there, one of the most interesting features in Twenty Mule Team Canyon has to be the extensive areas of colorful “folded earth” cut with gullies formed by runoff water. This area is hundreds of feet across and extends for a good distance from right to left as well. In flat light the color can be very pastel, but in the warm early morning light the subtle colors become more intense and visible. Here, shortly after sunrise, the light is skimming across the tops of the small hills, lighting them but allowing the gullies to remain shaded.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

keywords: twenty, 20, mule, team, canyon, geology, form, gully, fold, hill, round, color, morning, light, shape, pattern, death valley, national park, california, usa, scenic, landscape, travel, stock